Our Fun Friday

Two weeks ago today, we were expecting the son and daughter in law and grandchildren to come up from south Georgia.  John knows I tend to (a) work too hard in preparing, and (b) get anxious and a bit snippy as the day goes on and I get more and more tired.  He'd taken menu planning in hand himself for this particular visit, leaving me to tend to the shopping only.  Then he said on Thursday night, "We're going out tomorrow," which tossed me into a momentary panic but he added, "after all, I'm on vacation."  Well he knew full well that would put me more in a frame of mind to leave the house and let go of my 'must do' list.  I asked only one question: "Shall I pack a picnic lunch?"  This time he said "Yes, do." lol 

So we started another journey on a bright fall morning.  I took all sorts of photos along the way and filled my memory card long before we got to our destination.  Sadly I had to delete most of them in order to take other photos, but since most were of blurry autumn leaves, you'll appreciate the deletion more than the photos.

We took a winding roadway, an old federal highway, and when I say federal I mean Revolutionary federal.  It's known as "The Old Wire Road" but historical plaques state that General LaFayette traveled that roadway from the U.S. Capital to New Orleans in Louisiana territory, not yet a part of the U.S.  I thought this over as we traveled.  Yes, I am a history buff and I deeply appreciate walking or riding in the paths of history.  I doubt seriously the road we traveled was the original roadway since I could see at intervals some old stone bridge piers in the woods near us.  Old roads followed Indian trails, and most highways still run along or very near those old pathways.



The church above is in the town of Talbotton.  It is the Zion Episcopal church and was built in 1830.  Inside are galleries where slave parishioners sat.  The church is just behind this old building:

The Straus-LeVert Community House was formerly a Female Academy.  One source states this building to be circa 1856 but other sources state this academy was chartered in 1830 and in 1856 it became a Female College.  The two windows either side of the front door show a staircase angled across each window.  I'd dearly love to see inside these two buildings, but to date I've not been able.

Another lovely old courthouse exists in this town.

 After we left Talbotton there were a series of small towns and back roads that we needed to follow to get to Warm Springs.  It was just a wee bit tricky and at one point we came to a stop sign.  I looked up the roadway to the right just as John asked should we go straight and I answered "Oh yes," and then realized it was an ''Oh no!'' instead.  We'd headed into Franklin Delano Roosevelt State Park, which is another whole thing from The Little White House, our destination.  

Well it proved to be a happy mistake.  We drove along the ridge of a mountaintop and now and then had sweeping views on one side or the other.  It was so lovely that John said we'd just go ahead that way for a bit.  And then I saw a sign for the entrance to Dowdell's Knob which I'd read about the evening before.  This was an area where FDR liked to take guests to picnic, overlooking the valley below. 

There were nature trails in that area and a nice parking spot as well.   There was a lovely little spot with a statue of FDR.

We walked over to the old picnic area where the original stone bbq still stood, handily filled with concrete as a seating area now.  We sat down and admired the view.  This is a closeup of one of the long views across the area.  It was such a beautiful chilly autumn day, but you see there was a good deal of haze as well.  Humidity and a little smog even in our rural areas.  I love the rolling hills you can see beyond the view.  There were more mountains to the west but they were just out of view from the camera.  Those were a bit higher up than we were but I must say, having grown up riding about the Blue Ridge Parkway and Smokey Mountains of North and South Carolinas and Tennessee...This doesn't exactly qualify as 'mountain' in my mind but that's what they are called so I'll give in.

John and I had the best, most beautiful conversation sitting there on that Bbq pit and I wept a little and his voice got gruff at times, but it was nice tears not the grieving sort.  We talked about blessings we've experienced this year, which I think is pretty wonderful that we can say that because in a few ways it's been a tough year full of hurtful things and yet, the blessings were there to be acknowledged.  We talked about our faith and we talked about our children, and our home and our marriage and our finances.  We've no idea how long we talked, at least an hour certainly and possibly two.  It was one of those conversations that made time stand still and felt as though we were in a world all our own.  We felt as though God drew nearer to us in that time and we to Him and to each other, too.  And when I'd about cried off every last drop of mascara I'd put on that morning, we decided we'd just best move on to our real destination.

Not too many photos of that portion of the trip because many of the areas now have glass doors that are impossible to photograph through.  You get a great picture...of yourself taking a photo!  I will share that when you visit now there is a museum, a guest cottage, the servants quarters and garage to view as well as the Little White House. I'm only sharing photos of the few areas of The Little White House as those turned out best.  You'll note that while it looks rather cottage-y outside interiors are a bit rustic, log cabin-ish.  There was a strong nautical theme as well.

 I took a photo of the old pantry, now filled with kitchen utensils, but my favorite photo has to be this one of the butler pantry where the daily china was kept.  Isn't it pretty?

It looks brand new still.  It's a cornflower type design.  I also took a photo of the bathroom but the reason I did so was because of one little tiny detail: the remnants of the shelf edging where towels and such would have been stacked.  Well the photo didn't turn out at all, so I can't show it to you.  However, I can show you the view overhead from our picnic table:

While we were eating our picnic lunch, we got a text from the son and family saying they were just pulling out of the driveway at their home.  It was about 2:30pm then and I figured they'd be nearly 7pm arriving at our house.  My husband is a very wise man to 'distract' me for so much of the day and honestly it was the best possible day I could ever have had.  When we got home about 5pm we had our Shabat evening and that too was a weepy time of joyful recitation of blessings which included this lovely lovely day!